


up from down and wrong from right

by goukyorin (sashimisusie)



Category: Persona 4
Genre: Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Originally Posted on Tumblr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-23
Updated: 2015-10-23
Packaged: 2018-04-27 17:22:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5057248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sashimisusie/pseuds/goukyorin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In all of this, there’s a lesson to be learned by someone, somewhere. A nursery rhyme set to the heartbeat caught in his throat, to the pulse fluttering bird-like under the skin beneath Adachi’s teeth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	up from down and wrong from right

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Cagamosis (An unhappy marriage) - aDACHI/P4G/adachi x cabbage  
> Art (by yours truly): [¯\\_(ツ)_/¯](http://evandrelical.tumblr.com/post/131738113931/)
> 
> No cabbages were harmed in the making of this.

It occurs to Souji, back cold and hard against the fridge door, that they’ll write stories about this.

Not  _this_ –hands pushing and pulling and prying, thighs and hips falling into a geometry both foreign and familiar and not technically forbidden–specifically, but about them. Adachi’s heart is a spiral staircase, and here he is, treading cautiously down the middle. Down and over, picking his way down cracked marble steps into the night-dark cellar, anticipation and dread knotting in the pit of his stomach until he can’t tell up from down and wrong from right. There are stains like cinders at Souji’s knees, and a sickness in his veins at the strange rush of longing that lingers when they part.

In all of this, there’s a lesson to be learned by someone, somewhere. A nursery rhyme set to the heartbeat caught in his throat, to the pulse fluttering bird-like under the skin beneath Adachi’s teeth. He should leave burn-marks when his fingertips bruise into Souji’s chest, his hips, his thighs, with the way his touch burns like looking into the sun too long.

_He doesn’t._

But sometimes Souji looks to him.  _Really_ looks–past the messy hair and crooked tie, past the magic tricks–and knows to the marrow of his bones that neither of them will come out of this whole. As the sea calls to and carves from the shore, this sickness in him called longing: it is wanton desire, it is sharp-toothed hunger, it is a thirst for blood, for something–but what  _exactly_ , Souji wonders.

He pushes back and pulls, no weak-kneed bystander. His hands are tangled, grasping at coat lapels and shirt collars like his life depends on this single cotton-poly blend strand, because it does. It does, because bit by precarious bit, he’s learning not to trust anything Adachi does and says that can’t be grasped between his hands and tasted with the flat of his tongue. Which, then, is the child clad in red and which is the wolf?

“Well, that’s a story for another day,” the voice reading aloud the page would say to the captive audience, “And none of us is really sure.”

But here are the things Souji knows.

 _One_ : he’s standing in Adachi’s kitchenette, hands reaching for a knife.  _Two_ : Nails idly scrape the short hairs at the nape of his neck, passing the waiting time in silence. The blade slips, a silver arc into pale skin, and  _three_ : there is no salvaging the pile of blood-soaked cabbage.

“Dude, are you okay? That looks pretty serious.” A familiar voice cuts through the fog, pulling him home. There’s concern colouring Yosuke’s gaze, question directed at the plaster on Souji’s hand and the uncharacteristic stillness of the space between them.

 _Between them, bare skin. Above them, stars of shallowly-buried sins._ The night-dark in the cellar reminds him of a house that’s not home, and whispers of forgiveness. Souji smiles, a brittle blade of a thing, and his bird-heart flutters traitorously in his ribcage.

“I’ll be alright. The knife slipped, that’s all.”


End file.
